The end of a five-minute health pause, mandated by Major League Baseball—umpires going aisle to aisle to make sure everyone’s alright. Taking pulses, checking for life.

Then, somehow, bits of crowd energy on the way back, the survivors of nuclear winter poking their heads up out of shelters. Pockets in the upper decks, cheering “Lettt’s Gooo Cuuub-bies!”—like the desperate, never-say-never wails of a kid that’s never grown up. As if the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny might combine to bring Wrigley Field a win.

It had to be Kipnis, didn’t it? Son of Chicagoland. Childhood neighbor of He Who Shall Not Be Named. Bartman,Thy spirit remains among us…

He’d stood there in the box, the bat level on a flat line pointing to the backstop, holding it steady as if weighing the scales of justice—do you save the hometown, do you bury the hometown?

He’d brought the bat up onto his shoulder. Travis Wood delivered a weak fastball on the inside half of the plate. Kipnis swung easy at it. The ball sent on a rope to the right-field bleachers, the crowd too stunned to reach out and catch it.

The dagger.

Quiet. You can hear the Wrigley Field PA announcer, at full volume. And nearly nothing else. Kipnis raised like a prom king in the dugout. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!”

Cub fans looking down at the price on their tickets. Feeling vomitous. Counting the months on their fingers. We’ll be good next year. But… and they tap their pointer finger. The next finger: November. Then December. Then January… eventually spring. And a whole ‘nother season. Then—maybe… We’ll be back in this spot. But Christ. What. Happened.

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About The Big Inning

Upcoming, 2018: An October to Remember

An oral history of the 1968 World Series, composed entirely of interviews with each of the remaining players. Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Denny McLain, Orlando Cepeda, Tim McCarver, Mickey Stanley and many more. Due out for the 50th anniversary of the Series—August, 2018.